The retro-golf part of this is great! I love the graphics and the terrain. The little details like the autumn foliage and the increasing spectators as you gain more fans are really lovely. Knowing that the foliage is time-of-year-aware is fun. The gameplay is pretty relaxing too. The procedural holes are well-designed as par 2-3 challenges without being too same-y most of the time.
One minor issue for me getting started was that the controls weren’t immediately intuitive — I first tried arrows to aim (and was initially confused at the results) before trying A/D. Then I spotted the “controls” link on the bottom, but found the table a bit hard to parse (something about the formatting feels awkward to me, and having a “result” column feels unusual, although from a purely-aesthetic standpoint I do like the aggressively-retro design). After that the only bump was adjusting my swing timing to the button-up/release instead of button-down/press, but that was manageable.
The incremental aspect was confusing to me. It seems very separated, and kind of underdeveloped. The golf aspect is a continuously-playable game, with rich visual interest, using the keyboard continuously, often using both hands (for convenience), with no real moments where it felt like I should move my focus elsewhere; in contrast, the incremental aspect seems to be an occasional-input stat-increaser with little visual interest, using just the mouse, with little reason to focus/linger on it. Because I have to switch between just-keyboard and just-mouse, it feels like I have to choose between the two parts of the game, and golf feels like a consistently more rewarding choice. If I do switch to using the incremental part, the results of an upgrade seem very small, and as far as I’ve played, they don’t seem necessary to improve the golf experience (I didn’t actually think to try using the incremental features for the first 5 holes, and only did so because they were supposed to be part of the game). In the shop, I wasn’t sure what the “[club] caddy” would do, so I bought the cheapest one to find out, and was surprised to see it auto-leveling my putter with no way to turn it off (the range and speed seem fine already). Visually it’s kind of nice to have the bar moving on the side, but on the whole, I feel like the incremental aspect doesn’t really add anything to the base game — I feel like I can play and enjoy the golf part as a complete game in itself. This by itself isn’t a problem though—I can quite easily and happily just ignore the incremental stuff. Endless retro golf is pretty fun/relaxing by itself.
To reconcile the incremental part, I wonder if it would help to have an extra simulation layer to interact with. This might simulate very basically the financial struggles of a no-name golfer, trying to earn money through fan-based opportunities, tournaments, and rudimentary side-gigs, as they slowly progress from couch-surfing to owning a fancy apartment or something (even if this is presented entirely as screens of text between “days” of golfing). Alternatively, maybe it could lean into the strangeness of videogames and increment towards world peace, one hole at a time, by incrementally building fame/influence/emotional investment, etc. (Just some ideas—it’s fun to think about!)
Thanks for sharing this unusual experiment in incremental gameplay!